Meet Representative Karin Power, Oregon’s youngest legislator-mom.

Welcome! With the support of my family and our community in 2016, I ran for State Representative. Now with an active two year old in tow, I balance my daily work as Associate General Counsel at The Freshwater Trust with my service to House District 41.

My Background

As the daughter of a public school teacher and a correctional facility administrator, I grew up alongside two equally strong, intelligent sisters - and as the middle sibling, forged my knack for finding negotiated compromises at an early age.

I was first elected to Milwaukie City Council in 2014 after serving as a neighborhood chair and volunteer. There, I worked with constituents to bring park amenities to the Kellogg Creek Facility and Milwaukie Bay Park, and to spark successful efforts to fund Ledding Library renovations.

Today, my wife and I still live in historic Milwaukie where we can be found chasing after our son and trying to keep our two dogs from getting to all of his snacks. When we have time, we’re often found gardening, working on our 1920s bungalow, or biking around the district.

Our District

Our district spans from Oak Grove up to Sellwood and over to Eastmoreland and part of Brentwood-Darlington. Our close-in communities are great places to live and raise a family, yet are very socioeconomically diverse — truly a microcosm of Oregon.

In my work in the Legislature, I keep in mind your priorities: finding solutions to homelessness and the housing crisis, fighting for more funding for our schools, seeking solutions to our fractured healthcare system, and keeping Oregon at the forefront of national environmental efforts. I also know that childcare affordability and student loan debt are often high on working families’ minds.

What’s Next?

Our 2017 and 2018 legislation set Oregon apart, as we passed the strongest reproductive healthcare bill in the country, were the first state to pass gun violence prevention legislation after the Parkland, Florida school shooting, and funded the Cleaner Air Oregon program to reduce the risk of toxic air in our communities. We also increased our K-12 school budget by 11% from the prior biennium, passed strong equal pay legislation, and voted to bring transparency to high-cost prescription drugs.

I know our work is far from over. Our school classes remain persistently large, and student debt makes it hard to go for those additional vocational skills or higher degrees that are often keys to family wage jobs. I’m not done fighting for you in 2019. We need revenue reform to fully fund our schools, tenant protections from extreme rent increases and no-cause evictions — and the climate action that we know is necessary to do our part to protect future Oregon generations to come.

Help Fuel Our Work:

Let’s fight side by side for a better future and equal opportunity for every Oregonian.